Life Cycle Assessment of Spinach Produced in Central and Southern Italy

Abstract

Environmental sustainability continues to attract global interest, especially due to the issue of climate change. The agri-food sector is considered a major contributor to climate change as processes and activities within the sector can negatively impact the environment. The recent changing dietary pattern towards increased vegetable consumption implies a consequent increase in production to meet demand. This study assessed the environmental performance of 1 kg of spinach/FU (Functional Unit) cultivated by different producers in Italy under integrated and organic farming systems. The life cycle assessment was used following the CML_IA impact assessment method. The data used was mainly primary, related to 2019/2020 (harvest period), and representative of the cultivation systems of central and southern Italy. From the results obtained, impact scores for central Italy were higher (e.g., for global warming 0.56 and 0.47 kg CO2 eq. for central and southern respectively). There was high variability among the scores obtained. However, no statistically significant differences were observed at a confidence level of 95% (p < 0.05). Integrated farming was also more impacting than organic for most categories (e.g., for global warming 0.20 kg CO2 eq. for integrated and 0.075 kg CO2 eq. for organic) in Cerignola, Puglia region. Emissions from fertilizer, pesticide, tillage, and combine harvesting were major contributors to impact shares. The results of this study will be helpful to ensure sustainable spinach production and consumption.

Human Health and Ecosystem Quality Benefits with Life Cycle Assessment Due to Fungicides Elimination in Agriculture

“…Boscalid contributes to freshwater ecotoxicity and human toxicity, whereas mancozeb contributes to climate change due to its production stage, and terrestrial acidification. Finally, it should be noted that even though the EU expects an improved environmental performance due to increasing organic production, Pedretti et al [30] reported no statistical difference due to pesticides application between organic and conventional production of spinach leaf.…”

“…This does not necessarily mean that the quantity of active ingredients (dosage) is smaller in fruits than vegetables, cereals, or rapeseed. In contrast, vegetables employ the largest variety of fungicides, with systemic pesticides dominating, especially azoxystrobin [27][28][29] and boscalid [27,30,31]. For both fruits and vegetables, the most common contact fungicide is mancozeb [8,11,19,28,29,32].…”

“…Two studies presented a 40% contribution, but only Yelbo ga [51] stated that applied fungicides acetamide anillide, phthalimide, and organo-phosphorus compounds contribute 4.4%, 4.8%, and 14.8%, respectively. Applied fungicides in vegetables production contribute to a small extent to climate change [19,29,30,36,38,49] and terrestrial acidification [28,30,31,36,38].…”

Cultural Practices and Mechanical Weed Control for the Management of a Low-Diversity Weed Community in Spinach

“…In any case, weed control is challenging in spinach fields since very few herbicides are available for use in this crop [17]. During past years, lenacil was the dominant herbicide for selective weed control in several spinach-producing countries in Europe [18][19][20]. However, it is very likely to be withdrawn from the market in European Union (EU) after the end of 2021 due to concerns for its environmental fate and impact on human health and non-target organisms [21,22].…”

“…Phenmedipham, a photosystem II (PS II) inhibitor, is the only option for the selective control of broadleaf weeds [23,24]. For the selective control of grass weeds, available herbicides are limited to acetyl-CoA-carboxylase (ACCase) inhibitors (i.e., cycloxydim, quizalofopp-ethyl, and propaquizafop) [18,20]. There is much evidence that overreliance on these herbicides will lead to the rapid evolution of herbicide-resistant weed populations [25].…”